My favourite Doctor Who story - ever.

...plopped through my letter box today. Actually, that's not quite true, the Postie rang the bell and handed it to me, but we digress. Yes, The City of Death DVD, which was supposed to be out on Monday, finally turned up this morning.

This story is my favourite Doctor Who ever - it just has all the elements. Let me elaborate - oh go on, please:

The Script - rewritten by Douglas Adams in one night after being 'hosed down' by producer Graham Williams with gallons of whiskey and black coffee. This has Adams written all over it, the story is full of backflips and somersaults, the dialogue is the funniest you've ever seen before in Doctor Who, maybe not suprising and the 'big ideas' from Adams' imagination are brilliant. Who would have thought of an alien, splintered through time by an enormous explosion, using Leonardo DeVinci to paint several Mona Lisa's so he could steal the original in the Louvre and sell it 10 times over to fund his time travel in order to prevent his own splintering! PHEW!

The Lines Have I said I loved the dialogue? My favourite line:
Dugan (thick private eye): Do you know what I don't understand?
Romana: I expect so...

Tom & Lalla - both leads are on form here, the chemistry between them is buzzing as they fire lines back and forth like some sort of Time Lord double act. I always liked Romana, it seemed right the Doctor should travel with one of his own race. Tom here is at the height of his powers, he's having a whale of a time giving it large, really doing amazing justice to the script.

THAT cameo - John Cleese and Eleanor Bron's totally unexpected and entirely superfluous comedy moment in the art gallery, mistaking the TARDIS as an art installation. Genius.

The Location Work Who's first ever location filming abroad, in Paris. Sometimes its a little overworked, but most of the time it looks glossier than it ever did.

The Cast I've mentioned Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, but the supporting cast without exception are brilliant, particularly Julian Glover (of James Bond fame) and Catherine Schell.

The Ratings - Actually this isn't one of my favourite elements, its just an 'interesting' fact that this is the highest rated Who story of all time, ever, at 16.5million viewers.

If anyone out there would like to give 'Classic' Who a go, and are not sure where to start, they can do a lot worse than this.